SEO Werkt!

You may consider yourself a Windows master, but chances are even you’ve forgotten some of Windows’ awesome built-in features. Here are seven of our favorite forgotten Windows features—and the cool things you can do with them. More »

Shortly after seeding the Golden Master release of OS X Mountain Lion, Apple has sent an email calling for developers to begin submitting apps for the upcoming desktop operating system update.

Apple on Monday seeded what is intended to be the final version of its OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to developers, meaning that the next-generation operating system is all but complete and set for imminent launch.

Apple will likely unveil the iOS 6 Golden Master in September early enough to release the next-generation iPhone that same month and generate “significant” sales of the device in the third quarter of calendar 2012, according to one insider.

I will confess to being something of a quiz geek… My wife and I love to watch University Challenge and even take some pride in our pathetically small number of correct answers. Christmases with my in-laws usually involve long evenings of ridiculously difficult end-of-year quizzes. One year we even went to the trouble of designing our own quiz – one person acting as quiz master for each round.

So you can imagine my pride to be on the winning team in last night’s inaugural, H+K fourth floor, team quiz. The quiz was themed around the imminent Diamond Jubilee. For those not living in the UK this is about us Brits taking a few days off to celebrate the enduring quality of  an anachronistic, unelected institution. Or if you’re like me getting as far away from the festivities as is humanly possible.

But I digress.

Back to quizzes. I remember someone saying to me that quizzes didn’t test intelligence, only (often useless) knowledge. That may be true but when I put that into the context of organisations then I think there may be some value.

We often see organisations which are stuck in siloes, knowing very little about the other component parts. This may keep them focussed on the job at hand but surely there is a weakness in terms of sharing best practice,  duplicating effort and collaborating on the strongest ideas.

I remember when I moved house I decided to consolidate my TV, broadband, telephone, service etc with one company. Or at least I thought it was one company. After having to stay at home to receive various bits of technology on different days I had the very real sense that the left hand had no idea what the right hand was doing. From a customer experience perspective it was just terrible.

What’s all this got to do with quizzes? Well is it unreasonable to expect your employees to have a base level knowledge of what other parts of the business do?

I don’t think so.

Being able to answer those fundamental questions should be a key component of inducting someone into your organisation. And it shouldn’t stop there. Employees should have a hunger to know how and where they fit within the organisation. So why not quiz them regularly around structure, products and services? 

If it sparks opportunities for closer collaboration, reduced inefficiency and better customer service then surely that’s a good thing.

I for one will be speaking more to my 4th floor colleagues after last night’s triumph…

Love wine but don’t have the time, patience, or inclination to aerate your wine in a decanter forever before drinking? Former Microsoft CTO and master chef Nathan Myhrvold suggests a method he calls “hyperdecanting”. Sounds fancy and high-tech, right? It’s basically shorthand for “put your wine in a blender for a minute and it’ll taste better”. More »

Windows and Mac OS X don’t always get along so well when they’re required to co-exist on the same drive, but that doesn’t mean they can’t. Hackintosh master tonymacx86 outlines the best practices for setting up a dual-boot environment on your hackintosh in this charming video. You’ll get all the information in the video above, but here’s an outline of the steps you should take for reference: More »

Chefs. Musicians. Athletes. Each is a master in their own discipline. Yet, many of these folks have skills that can be leveraged in a completely different channel with great success. Quite often, making the leap to another field can open up an entirely new world for them. And that’s exactly what…



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

So you’ve decided it’s time to learn your way around the kitchen, but you don’t really know where to start. From knife basics to budget stretching to proper food storage, here are the most important things you’ll want to learn as you become a master chef. More »

Apple finally committed to a release date for the next version of their mobile OS. iOS 5 will be released on October 12th. If you can’t wait eight more days and don’t have a developer account, get iOS 5′s best features right now (jailbreaking often required). But the wait won’t be that long. iOS 5 will be officially available next Wednesday, and developers will likely see a golden master release even sooner. More »